Albanian Airlines

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Albanian Airlines

IATA LV	ICAO LBC	Callsign ALBANIAN
Founded		1991
Hubs		Tirana-Rinas Airport
Fleet size		4
Destinations		11 (8 Countries)
Parent company		M.A. Kharafi & Sons
Headquarters		Tirana, Albania
Key people
Website: http://www.albanianairlines.com.al/

Albanian Airlines is an airline based in Tirana, Albania. It operates scheduled international services. Its main base is Tirana-Rinas Airport (TIA).

1 History
2 Services
3 Fleet
4 External links

[edit] History

The airline was established in May 1991 under the name of Arberia Airlines, and was the private airline of politicians for communist Albania. It was later renamed to Albanian Airlines in May of 1992 and started open operations to the public on 20 June 1995. It was formed as a joint venture between the Albanian state-owned Albtransport and Tyrolean Airways of Austria flying a single Austrian registered, De Havilland Canada Dash 8 - 102. Tyrolean opted out of the relationship in 1997, taking back the single Dash 8. Albanian Airlines was privatized in the same year and sold to Kuwaiti-based M.A. Kharafi & Sons Group. As a result, it was restructured in 1997 when its operations were based on a single Airbus A320 - 231 aircraft leased from Shorouk Air of Egypt. By 2001 it operated a fleet of 4 Tupolev Tu-134 aircraft on scheduled services from Tirana to Bologna, Frankfurt, Istanbul, Priština, Rome and Zürich. In July 2001 Albanian Airlines started upgrading its fleet by gradually removing its Tupolev aircraft and acquired its first BAe 146. Two more BAe 146 were added in 2003 and 2004. This upgrading process allowed the company to expand to new strategic markets such as the United Kingdom.